The news? Huey Lewis might not be up on it, actually. He's great at avoiding what he doesn't want to see, including the cult classic and meme goldmine American Psycho. Despite the music of Huey Lewis & the News featuring quite prominently in the 2000 film, the musician still hasn't watched it after all these years.
On the latest episode of Mark Hoppus's Apple Music After School Radio show, Lewis told the blink-182 bassist about how he had initially boycotted the movie over a press release that falsely claimed that the band pulled "Hip to Be Square" from the soundtrack due to American Psycho's violent nature.
Lewis had initially happily licensed the song for the movie, having read the Bret Easton Ellis novel from which the screenplay was sourced. "When I read the book, it was like a review of art stuff," he explained. "And not only us, but Phil Collins and Tina Turner, and man, he really knew his stuff, he got us pretty much correct."
Apparently, Lewis got a call from his manager about two weeks after licensing "Hip to Be Square" and discovered that the production also wanted to put it on the soundtrack alongside "one other song and then a bunch of source music." Lewis says he then decided to politely decline the opportunity, because he wasn't sure if it was right to "make our fans buy that for just that one song."
"On the eve of the release of the movie, they came out with a press release that went everywhere that said that Huey Lewis had seen the movie and it was so violent that he yanked his tune from the soundtrack, to pump up interest," the singer-songwriter remembered. "And that pissed me off, frankly, so I boycotted the film. I've never seen the film, but I did see the clip when we lampooned it for Funny or Die."
Lewis told the same story to Rolling Stone a decade ago, saying he "refused to watch it" but that he thought the "Hip to Be Square" scene was great when he had to watch a clip of it for the Funny or Die skit. He also saw the Broadway musical, but who's counting?
While he may have managed to bypass watching the movie for over two decades now, there's absolutely no way Lewis has properly boycotted all of the Patrick Bateman memes. The power of the internet is a curious thing.
On the latest episode of Mark Hoppus's Apple Music After School Radio show, Lewis told the blink-182 bassist about how he had initially boycotted the movie over a press release that falsely claimed that the band pulled "Hip to Be Square" from the soundtrack due to American Psycho's violent nature.
Lewis had initially happily licensed the song for the movie, having read the Bret Easton Ellis novel from which the screenplay was sourced. "When I read the book, it was like a review of art stuff," he explained. "And not only us, but Phil Collins and Tina Turner, and man, he really knew his stuff, he got us pretty much correct."
Apparently, Lewis got a call from his manager about two weeks after licensing "Hip to Be Square" and discovered that the production also wanted to put it on the soundtrack alongside "one other song and then a bunch of source music." Lewis says he then decided to politely decline the opportunity, because he wasn't sure if it was right to "make our fans buy that for just that one song."
"On the eve of the release of the movie, they came out with a press release that went everywhere that said that Huey Lewis had seen the movie and it was so violent that he yanked his tune from the soundtrack, to pump up interest," the singer-songwriter remembered. "And that pissed me off, frankly, so I boycotted the film. I've never seen the film, but I did see the clip when we lampooned it for Funny or Die."
Lewis told the same story to Rolling Stone a decade ago, saying he "refused to watch it" but that he thought the "Hip to Be Square" scene was great when he had to watch a clip of it for the Funny or Die skit. He also saw the Broadway musical, but who's counting?
While he may have managed to bypass watching the movie for over two decades now, there's absolutely no way Lewis has properly boycotted all of the Patrick Bateman memes. The power of the internet is a curious thing.
